The electrophoretic deposition (EPD) process utilizes electric fields to mobilize particles within a solution or suspension and deposit those particles from a solution onto a substrate by taking advantage of particle surface charge.
Earlier industrial use of EPD processes has been applied to a broad range of materials, but owing at least in part to the hazardous and sensitive nature of constructing products containing energetic materials, such as high explosives, thermites, and intermetallic compounds, as well as regulations restricting the use and creation thereof, EPD processes have yet to be applied to creating products including compositions of energetic materials.
However, the ability to construct products containing compositions of energetic materials with precision and accordingly provide highly controlled and/or tunable combustion behavior on a wide range of substrates would provide great benefits and new applications in national defense, materials research, pyrotechnics, welding, mining, and the like by conferring unprecedented flexibility and precision in designing products suitable for use in such applications.